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OTTAWA—A busload of American college and university students was strip-searched by Canadian border guards three years ago in an incident that violated government policy and may have contravened the Charter of Rights of Freedoms, documents show.

According to an internal Canadian Border Services Agency report that was obtained by Metroland Media and the Toronto Star, the mass strip search was carried out at the Thousand Islands Bridge border crossing in Lansdowne, Ont., on Dec. 31, 2011.

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The bus, carrying 48 American students aged 18 to 25, was headed to Montreal to ring in the new year, followed by a couple of days of skiing at Mont Tremblant. The students were mostly males, but there were at least 10 females.

The report said the tour bus arrived at the crossing around 11 a.m. that day. When an initial immigration check revealed “past criminality” among some of the passengers, the students were asked to step off the bus. A search of the vehicle revealed six grams of marijuana and a small amount of what was believed to be cocaine, the report said.

The following several hours were “a nightmare . . . it was a horror story,” one passenger said in an interview. The man, now 27, requested his name not be used for this story.

“I had to go into a room, with two guys that were sitting at a table, and take off all my clothes, and then drop my pants and turn around,” he said.

“(The passengers) were pretty agitated . . . . There were some girls crying. They were pretty upset.”

It’s not clear why CBSA launched the review, or if anyone had complained about the incident.

But the documents show the CBSA kept the strip search under wraps for more than three years, waiting to see if details would leak out before commenting. “If the issue becomes known to politicians or the media (it) could raise questions about CBSA’s mandate and authority to conduct personal searches of travellers,” the review said.

A media plan was drafted and a statement was readied in case reporters contacted CBSA for comment.

In a statement issued Thursday, CBSA spokesperson Chris Kealey said the agency reviewed its strip-search policies after the incident and sent an operational bulletin to all staff in February 2012.

“For example, each individual case is to be looked at independently of any other traveller and that the presence of specific indicators for that traveller be considered,” Kealey wrote in an email.

“In addition, learning modules were developed on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and CBSA Personal Searches . . . and have been part of the core curriculum for all new CBSA officers since the fall of 2012.”

The report also made several observations and recommendations and said that “a greater focus on the legislation, policies/guidelines (around strip searches) and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is required to address deficiencies.”

A separate memo, written after the initial report, said: “The decision….to conduct the 48 personal searches was not in keeping with CBSA Policies and Procedures.”

The memo stated that after the students were taken off the bus that morning, border officials sent for a drug sniffing dog — the nearest available was at the Ottawa airport — for further inspection. The dog found nothing.

Their superior then asked for all 48 students to be strip-searched, one by one, in the single “personal search” room at the facility.

The report says the request came directly from Chief Mark Pergunas, the top border officer at the crossing.

“No comment, thanks very much,” Pergunas said. “I understand you’re talking to some other folks at CBSA. And they’ll cover off on anything.”

Kealey said Pergunas approved the search without notifying his superiors, but did not say if he had faced any discipline.

After the strip searches began, two more students admitted to having about 30 pills. The passenger who spoke to the Star said some of those pills were Adderall or similar drugs, prescribed but without proper documentation. The incident report referenced amphetamines.

Sources who were not present during the search but have knowledge about what went on said front-line officers were uncomfortable with the request for the mass strip search. Worried they may have been breaking the law, the officers began taking notes to “cover their asses,” one of the sources said in an interview.

“When someone on an airplane gets stopped with drugs, (you) don’t strip search everyone on the plane. (You) do a strip search only as a last resort. And in this case there were no more indicators of further drugs.”

The passenger said the guards seemed uncomfortable.

“It seemed like they didn’t really want to be there,” he said.

Bruce Ryder, a professor at Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto, said charter rights extend to travellers crossing into Canada, and that the students would likely have a good case that those rights were violated.

“Courts have said entering the country you have diminished expectation of privacy, but that doesn’t mean your right ceases to exist,” Ryder said in an interview.

“It strikes me that a small amount of drugs shouldn’t raise the suspicion that extends to everybody on the bus. To strip search everyone strikes me as unreasonable under those circumstances.”

More than three years later, a charter challenge seems unlikely. But the passenger said the experience left the students jarred. He said he’s crossed the Canadian border 25 times or more, but “that was definitely the worst experience (he) ever had.”

While the searches violated CBSA policy, both the internal report and senior management complimented the professionalism of the front-line border agents involved — if not their managers.

“Great job by all,” a CBSA official wrote after the incident.

“Back to normal now.”

Correction – April 24, 2015: This article was edited from a previous version that contained an incorrect photo of the Thousand Islands Bridge border crossing.

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